MOSES LAKE — Some students in the Basin will be a little better equipped this year thanks to local real estate professionals.

“I got a wild idea in May to do a Grant County-wide school supply drive,” Anna Lucero, an agent with CENTURY 21 Alsted Real Estate in Moses Lake. “I chose to do all of Grant County because I personally grew up in Ephrata and that school is still near to my heart. My boys go to Moses Lake, my daughter attends Wilson Creek and my family is originally from the Quincy area.”

Lucero started out in early August, publicizing her drive originally through social media and word of mouth. The response to that wasn’t great, she said, so she decided to hit potential donors where it counts: in the taste buds.

“I moved to plan B,” she said. “I ordered 100 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, drove to Spokane, picked them up and scheduled two days to sell them, one in Moses Lake and one in Ephrata. I sold out all of them and raised, with tips, $800.”

Lucero used $250 of that for art supplies for Wilson Creek schools, she said and split the supplies bought with the other $550 between Moses Lake, Ephrata and Quincy. Other community members contributed supplies as well, which were delivered along with Lucero’s.

Meanwhile, other local real estate professionals were holding their own drive.

“Members of the Moses Lake-Othello Association of Realtors collected hundreds of school supplies during August and delivered large boxes filled with them to the Moses Lake School District today,” Tami Canfield, 2023 president, wrote in a press release to the Columbia Basin Herald Wednesday. “The purpose is to help children in need in our community and make a positive impact on their education.”

Anne Fisher, branch manager at Guild Mortgage in Moses Lake, organized the school supply drive and presented a list of items that teachers suggested area students were most in need of, according to the Realtors Association release, including paper, folders, binders, crayons, markers, colored pencils, pencils, erasers, glue sticks, earbuds, headphones, water bottles and backpacks.

It’s not the only community service the Moses Lake-Othello Realtors Association performs every year.

“Over the years, the 145-member Realtor association has supported the local community in many ways: through staffing the Burger Barn at the (Moses Lake Roundup) Rodeo during annual fair week in August to raise funds to award high school and Big Bend scholarships each year, supporting activities for Habitat for Humanity and the Boys and Girls Club, collecting food for the food bank, and providing free mask distribution to the public during COVID,” Canfield wrote in the release.

The need is certainly significant. A 2019 study by the National Education Association showed that teachers in Washington forked over an average of $464 apiece every year out of their own pockets for supplies that would ordinarily come from students or the school district. The national average was $459, according to the study, and the highest rate of teacher spending was in California, at $664 per teacher per year.

“We are proud to provide these school supplies to support our students, teachers and local schools,” Canfield wrote.

Joel Martin may be reached via email at [email protected].